housing suggestions?

[missmissi]

I planned to build a new house – play area combo soon, but what we are doing is working, so ive not been in a hurry. Even though our tiny living room is now The Bunny Room, which is not so good we have a dog crate for a Great Dane connected to an Xpen for daytime. I was told Jack and Daisy were both born the week of Jan. 23rd and both males and too young to spay/neuter; im not prepared for this. So now we have 6 babies, and Jack was neutered this week. And while they are precious, they are growing fast. Instead of being happy and enjoying their little-ness, we are panicking about what to do. 

Considering having an enclosure built on wheels so we can bring them outside during the day when weather is good to play in a large fenced area on our deck. How big does this enclosure need to be (depth, height, width)?  

We have a 150sq living room. What id like is something 3ft wide, 3ft(or less) deep and possibly 6ft high to compensate for the shorter length and width. Can have 6×6 or 3×8 Xpen inside too, most of the time. Is this realistic? Am i even close?

I have been hoping Jack and Daisy could be free to roam our house when im home, but they are terrible chewers and scratchers. I need to do some touch ups to furniture now, including our red leather sofa

[missmissi]

Posted By missmissi on 6/11/2015 11:24 AM

I planned to build a new house – play area combo soon, but what we are doing is working, so ive not been in a hurry. Even though our tiny living room is now The Bunny Room, which is not so good we have a dog crate for a Great Dane connected to an Xpen for daytime. I was told Jack and Daisy were both born the week of Jan. 23rd and both males and too young to spay/neuter; im not prepared for this. So now we have 6 babies, and Jack was neutered this week. And while they are precious, they are growing fast. Instead of being happy and enjoying their little-ness, we are panicking about what to do. 

Considering having an enclosure built on wheels so we can bring them outside during the day when weather is good to play in a large fenced area on our deck. How big does this enclosure need to be (depth, height, width)?  

We have a 150sq living room. What id like is something 3ft wide, 3ft(or less) deep and possibly 6ft high to compensate for the shorter length and width. Can have 6×6 or 3×8 Xpen inside too, most of the time. Is this realistic? Am i even close?

I have been hoping Jack and Daisy could be free to roam our house when im home, but they are terrible chewers and scratchers. I need to do some touch ups to furniture now, including our red leather sofa

I would appreciate your opinions, advice and suggestions. Thank you!

[mkculs]

Welcome to my world–I got two “females” and now have 10 bunnies. I just got back from the vet and plan to have all the male rabbits neutered this summer, and all the females next summer.

First, where do you live (generally)? If you have a university near enough, take your babies to them at about 8 weeks to get the sex straightened out. 4 weeks is a bit too early, and some males will have descended testicles by 10 weeks (mine did, we discovered today. He’s the biggest humper of the group, so I guess that is a sign). Once you know how many males/females, you can decide what to do based on what room you have and how much you can afford.

I am lucky to have a patio/deck where the bunnies can play outside for hours–otherwise, they are caged right now in a small pen. We’ll use our bathroom for potty training, 1-2 bunnies at a time. The biggest thing is males will fight if unneutered–even if raised together–and if you want to keep several housed together, you need to neuter the males and introduce all the bunnies to the new space at the same time so no one gets territorial.

Males will try to castrate each other when fighting. I’m a total novice, but I am taking the advice from the vet and the House Rabbit Society very seriously in planning a future with multiple bunnies.

I am hoping to get everyone completely settled in the house and fully littered trained so that when our Wisconsin winter hits, they still have plenty of room to exercise and run about. I’ll probably bunny proof one room and all the stairways–going up and down seems to amuse those who have tried it. That means we can leave doors shut in bedrooms and keep bunnies from furniture and cords. I’ll gate off my living room–which I do to keep the dog out, anyway, and won’t have to worry about the furniture there, either.

So, lots of time and energy socializing the buns–holding, holding, holding the little ones, and mom and dad too, of course. Litter train as you can–I’m using separate bathrooms, one for the boys and one for the girls. I’ll start with all of them in there and remove one at a time if it doesn’t seem to be working, or come up with a way to do one at a time. Mostly, though, the bunnies seem to be pretty inclined to poop and pee where the litter/hay is, so it should not be too hard.

These are just some of my ideas off the top of my head. I may have a friend build an indoor/outdoor space with a connecting pet doorway. I love the idea but don’t know how realistic I’m being. I don’t know if all 10 buns can stay, but I’ll try.

And the vet told me to email a pic and info to the vet school/special species department, and he said students would adopt at least 5. I may do that if I run into difficulties with fighting after neutering the males.

[missmissi]

Posted By mkculs on 6/12/2015 4:56 PM

Welcome to my world–I got two “females” and now have 10 bunnies. I just got back from the vet and plan to have all the male rabbits neutered this summer, and all the females next summer.

First, where do you live (generally)? If you have a university near enough, take your babies to them at about 8 weeks to get the sex straightened out. 4 weeks is a bit too early, and some males will have descended testicles by 10 weeks (mine did, we discovered today. He’s the biggest humper of the group, so I guess that is a sign). Once you know how many males/females, you can decide what to do based on what room you have and how much you can afford.

I am lucky to have a patio/deck where the bunnies can play outside for hours–otherwise, they are caged right now in a small pen. We’ll use our bathroom for potty training, 1-2 bunnies at a time. The biggest thing is males will fight if unneutered–even if raised together–and if you want to keep several housed together, you need to neuter the males and introduce all the bunnies to the new space at the same time so no one gets territorial.

Males will try to castrate each other when fighting. I’m a total novice, but I am taking the advice from the vet and the House Rabbit Society very seriously in planning a future with multiple bunnies.

I am hoping to get everyone completely settled in the house and fully littered trained so that when our Wisconsin winter hits, they still have plenty of room to exercise and run about. I’ll probably bunny proof one room and all the stairways–going up and down seems to amuse those who have tried it. That means we can leave doors shut in bedrooms and keep bunnies from furniture and cords. I’ll gate off my living room–which I do to keep the dog out, anyway, and won’t have to worry about the furniture there, either.

So, lots of time and energy socializing the buns–holding, holding, holding the little ones, and mom and dad too, of course. Litter train as you can–I’m using separate bathrooms, one for the boys and one for the girls. I’ll start with all of them in there and remove one at a time if it doesn’t seem to be working, or come up with a way to do one at a time. Mostly, though, the bunnies seem to be pretty inclined to poop and pee where the litter/hay is, so it should not be too hard.

These are just some of my ideas off the top of my head. I may have a friend build an indoor/outdoor space with a connecting pet doorway. I love the idea but don’t know how realistic I’m being. I don’t know if all 10 buns can stay, but I’ll try.

And the vet told me to email a pic and info to the vet school/special species department, and he said students would adopt at least 5. I may do that if I run into difficulties with fighting after neutering the males.

Thank you for this.

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